


Crashing

by maplemood



Category: Eleanor & Park - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Missing Scene, Separation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:06:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21639301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maplemood/pseuds/maplemood
Summary: Maybe that was the problem. Maybe Park had fallen into Eleanor too far, so far he couldn’t love her the right way anymore. Far enough that, now she was gone, all he could think about was his own wanting, how it hurt worse than he’d ever been hurt before.
Relationships: Eleanor Douglas/Park Sheridan, Jamie Sheridan & Park Sheridan
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13
Collections: 300bpm Flash Exchange November 2019





	Crashing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesertVixen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/gifts).



After writing Eleanor a letter—after driving her all the way to Minneapolis and driving himself all the way back—Park fell into bed. 

For a few hours, he didn’t move at all. Not to take off his shoes or to pee. Not even to put a tape in the stereo. 

The Smiths, U2, XTC. Every band—every song—reminded him of her.

It felt like the worst thing Park had ever done, leaving her there. In Minneapolis. (What did a city like Minneapolis have to offer a person like Eleanor? Clapboard houses and front lawns just as boring as his?

She was the kind of person who deserved better things. The X-Mansion. New York, at least, or Los Angeles. Big, bright cities, where Minneapolis was more or less Omaha 2.0, never big enough, never bright enough, drab and gray. But everything went drab and gray around her. Eleanor. She was the only person who mattered.)

The best thing he could’ve done would’ve been to stay parked a few houses down from her uncle’s until Eleanor changed her mind. Until she understood that he was the only person she really needed. 

Except that wasn’t true. 

Eleanor was a rock, putting up with Richie for as long as she had. More than a rock, she was _strong_ , and there was no way Eleanor needed Park as much as Park needed her. 

Which made him worse than selfish for wanting her here, with him, as badly as he did. Drab and gray or not, Eleanor needed Minneapolis. She needed her uncle and her aunt, and a place to stay that wasn’t Richie’s house or Park’s waterbed, his closet, a sleeping bag on his bedroom floor. 

_Where we keep her?_ he could imagine his mom asking. _Too small for girl and boy, Park. No room._

Wasn’t loving someone wanting what was best for them? Falling into somebody else as much as you fell for them? 

Maybe that was the problem. Maybe Park had fallen into Eleanor too far, so far he couldn’t love her the right way anymore. Far enough that, now she was gone, all he could think about was his own wanting, how it hurt worse than he’d ever been hurt before. 

Like he’d lost a piece of himself. 

Like he was losing himself. 

* * *

“Park?”

It was dark. The rotating solar system glowed over his bed; Park hadn’t gotten up to turn on the light. Or to take off his shoes or turn on the stereo. Or to pee. 

“Park?” his dad said again. He stood in the doorway.

Park’s mouth felt dried-out, sour. “Yeah.”

“You’re not asleep?”

His eyes were crusty. Probably he’d drifted off for an hour or two. “Not anymore.”

“Okay,” his dad said. Then, “Are you hungry? Your mom’s cooking dinner.”

Park could smell chicken-fried steak, his grandma’s recipe. His mom knew it was his favorite. She was fussing at Josh in the kitchen—Park could hear them both. 

He pictured Eleanor in the blue gray house with the willow in the front yard, sitting down to dinner between her aunt and uncle. Spooning up soup, forking into mashed potatoes, her eyes red-rimmed.

“Nope. I had a bunch of junk at the rest stops.”

“Okay.” His dad sounded unsure. As far as Park remembered, he’d never sounded unsure before. It was a miracle, a once-in-a-lifetime-event; if Park weren’t feeling so hollow, he might’ve been impressed with himself. 

He’d pissed off his dad before, obviously. And disappointed him. Impressed him once or twice. Uncertainty was new. 

Floorboards creaked as his dad stepped over the threshold. He shuffled around in the dark, muttering until he found the light switch. Flicked it on. 

Park squinted. 

Next, his dad found the stereo. The cassette tape cases clattered as he fumbled through them, picking one out at random. “It’s a god damn mess in here,” he said, without heat. The stereo clicked to life.

That was when Park had to squeeze his eyes shut for a minute, and not because his pupils were practically blown out. The tape was _Unknown Pleasures_ , not _Closer_ , and it was wound back to the beginning. The opening track wasn’t his favorite, Eleanor’s either (“I just want to break that song into pieces and love them all to death.” “Exactly.” “Right?”), but it was Joy Division. Like being on the bus again, his Walkman headphones strung between them. Their music a shared heartbeat.

_“I’ve been waiting for a guide to come and take me by the hand…”_

“Move over,” his dad said. 

Okay. _This_ was new. 

Park opened his eyes to slits and scooted, since he didn’t have the energy to tell his dad to get out, and this was his dad’s house anyway, and even if he wouldn’t Park’s dad could totally kick Park’s ass for saying something like that. 

The edge of the mattress sunk and sloshed. “She’s a tough one, Park,” he heard his dad say. “She’ll be all right.”

He squinted at the shape of his dad’s back turned towards him while his dad sat on the side of the bed. The bulk of it, the way his dad’s shoulders bunched up a little when he spoke, like he was struggling with himself to find the right words. 

Like it was even possible to find the right words. 

Park cleared his throat. His shoulders were bunching up a little, too. “That’s not the problem.”

“Huh?”

Eleanor undressed. Eleanor in the dark, glowing and all candy-coated with freckles. Eleanor in the dark, crying. Park wanted his arms around her. He wanted to swallow her whole. He wanted to never have to let her go, wanted her on a constant replay in his head like the first few seconds of every Joy Division song ever written. 

He said, “I don’t want her to be.” He waited for his dad to call him a pussy. 

The mattress dipped a little again. Music droned away—Park’s dad had lowered the stereo volume practically down to a murmur. “What do you mean by that?” he asked now. Carefully. 

“I mean…” Park didn’t know what he meant. He certainly didn’t know how to tell his dad what he meant. “Without me,” he finally blurted. “I don’t want her to be all right without me. Because I’m not all right without her.”

She was the only person who mattered. And he hadn’t mattered—didn’t matter, not anymore—until he’d met her.

From the kitchen, his mom called, “You boys okay in there? Park? You come out for dinner?”

Park’s dad cleared his throat. It sounded about a million miles off from the noise Park had made, rough and gravelly. “It’s fine, Mindy,” he called back. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

He’d never felt this way, Park was pretty sure. Or if he had, his dad would’ve found a way to stop himself. He would have shouldered it all and swapped out his selfishness by sheer dint of will, some kind of emotional alchemy Park knew he’d never get a handle on. His dad was strong. Not as strong as Eleanor, maybe, but stalwart. 

When he half-turned and reached out to squeeze Park’s shoulder, Park just lay there. Dry-eyed and dry-mouthed, the quiet rhythm from the stereo building into a headache at the back of his skull. He didn’t have anything left to say.

“Give it a few weeks,” his dad said. 

Park didn’t answer. 

“...a few months. You’ll start to feel better.”

Sure.

“Hey, Sugar Ray,” said his dad. He leaned closer and squeezed Park’s shoulder again. “It’s okay if it hurts for a while,” he said quietly; for the first time Park wondered if his dad had put on the music not only to give himself something to do but to give Park some background noise so he could say what he needed to say without worrying about Josh or his mom listening in while he spilled his guts. Though his dad had most likely put the music on to cover his own discomfort, too—as a rule, he left the heart-to-hearts to Park’s mom. 

“You kids are both tough as nails,” his dad continued. He kept squeezing Park’s shoulder. There was something good about that, though. It steadied Park, at least made him feel a little less like the bottom had dropped out of his gut by the time his dad said, “You’ll work your way through this.”

 _Okay,_ he wanted to answer. As in, _Okay, Dad, fine, I’ll believe you. I’ll try._ But when his dad got up, thumping Park on the shoulder one last time, he couldn’t say anything. 

* * *

His dad had left the stereo on. After he left, Park flopped over so he wouldn’t have to look at the doorway. If Eleanor were standing there, and his light were off, she’d be backlit, the light from the hallway giving her a golden, angel-burnished halo. Not just her hair, but all over. Eleanor didn’t need much help to glow. 

Park wished his dad had turned the light off. 

He wished he could think about the whole situation the way his dad seemed to be thinking about it, as if because it was temporary (was it?), it should be bearable. That was a man’s way of looking at it, probably. 

Or it was just an older guy’s way of looking at it. 

He imagined being old. Park imagined owning a car, not a hand-me-down, either, his own car, and a house, and as many sound systems and tapes and comics as he wanted. Being his dad’s age in some year that wasn’t even real yet. 

If Eleanor wasn’t by his side for all of that, what was the point of getting there?

Imagining he could feel her lying beside him. Her breath on the back of his neck, her curls tickling his cheek, his arms, getting everywhere. _Unknown Pleasures_ had already raced a couple tracks ahead, but Park was still stuck at the first song, at having the spirit but losing the feeling, Eleanor whispering along in his ear, mouthing the lyrics against his shoulder. 

_You’ll work your way through this._

Park groped for that steadied feeling, the best he could come up with for now. He reached for her. 

He didn’t get up to turn off the light until after the tape had played to the end.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I just adored your song prompt ("19 Somethin'" by Mark Wills) and tried to work a bit of that feeling in towards the end, when Park imagines growing older. Unfortunately, the rest of the fic decided it wanted to be a bit angstier--I hope you don't mind, and thanks for giving me the chance to write in this fandom!
> 
> The Joy Division song that plays on the stereo is "Disorder."


End file.
